coercion

coercion in law, the unlawful act of compelling a person to do, or to abstain from doing, something by depriving him of the exercise of his free will, particularly by use or threat of physical or moral force. In many states of the United States, statutes declare a person guilty of a misdemeanor if he, by violence or injury to another's person, family, or property, or by depriving him of his clothing or any tool or implement, or by intimidating him with threat of force, compels that other to perform some act that the other is not legally bound to perform. Coercion may involve other crimes, such as assault . In the law of contracts, the use of unfair persuasion to procure an agreement is known as duress ; such a contract is void unless later ratified. At common law, one who commits a crime under coercion may be excused if he can show that the danger of death or great bodily harm was present and imminent. However, coercion is not a defense for the murder or attempted murder of an innocent third party.

coercion See POWER.

coercion bills, under various names, were a sombre obbligato to Anglo-Irish relations throughout much of the 19th cent. Sometimes produced by threat of revolution or actual insurrection, or by widespread agrarian disorder, they also balanced measures of concession to improve their chance of getting through the Westminster Parliament. habeas corpus was not introduced in Ireland until 1781, most lords-lieutenant arguing that the country was not sufficiently settled, and it was suspended at frequent intervals thereafter. Peel as chief secretary responded to agrarian violence in 1814 with an Insurrection Act, which suspended trials by jury in troubled areas and allowed a curfew and the recruitment of special constables. Grey's ministry in 1833 replied to the disorders of the ‘tithe war’ and the murders by the ‘whitefeet’ with a coercion act which allowed the lord-lieutenant to ban public meetings and to proclaim martial law in disaffected areas: ‘we coerce as do Metternich and the pope’, Palmerston wrote, ‘but then we redress grievances, as they do not’. Gladstone's first land reform in 1871 was accompanied by a Peace Preservation Act, which extended the powers of the lord-lieutenant to order search and arrest and made disturbed areas pay for the extra policing. His second land reform in 1881, at the height of the Irish Land League agitation, was accompanied by another coercion act widening powers of arrest and detention, and strengthened after the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish. Balfour, chief secretary 1887–91, declared coercion and concession his twin policy—‘relentless as Cromwell in enforcing obedience … radical in redressing grievances’. His Congested districts relief scheme was matched by a new Crime Act. The protracted opposition to coercive measures by Parnell and his colleagues led to parliamentary devices like the closure to prevent business being brought to a standstill.

J. A. Cannon